Lily Evans, Queen of Hogwarts
by Iscora
Summary: The story of Harry's mum, documenting her rise from a relatively unknown to one of the most popular girls at Hogwarts (not in the normal sense, though...). May contain OotP spoilers.
1. The Journey

Chapter One: The Journey  
  
Lily Evans stared out the window of the Hogwarts Express with a vacant stare, her cheek pressed against her fist. Sighing softly, she watched a bunch of trees pass by.  
  
"Aw, cheer up Lily," said Tracy, plunking down on the seat next to her. "You should be happy you're going to Hogwarts. I'm so much of a squib I was extremely happy when I got my acceptance letter! I was afraid I wasn't going to be accepted, you see."  
  
"For you it might be great," said Lily slowly, not taking her eyes off the scenery. "You're already so familiar with this world. I'm leaving everything I know for something totally different and strange. It's a very funny feeling."  
  
"I'm sure it must be," said Tracy dismissively. "Oh, the trolley is here. Are you getting anything?"  
  
"No.I'm not hungry."  
  
"Are you sure? These cauldron cakes are really good, you know. What about Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans? How about some Chocolate Frogs? I think they'll cheer you up."  
  
Tracy bought a whole pile of strange foods and dumped them in Lily's lap. They spent the next half hour sampling different snacks and daring each other to eat suspicious looking every flavor beans.  
  
"I think I'd better go look for Stacy now," said Tracy, standing up and brushing off her hands and making a face. "She asked me to hold something for her and never asked for it back, and it's burning a hole in my pocket, literally. You can eat the rest, I don't think I'll be back for a while."  
  
With that, she swept out of the compartment, leaving a trail of cauldron cake crumbs.  
  
A minute later a small girl tripped into the compartment, looking lost. She had a pleasant, round face and wide gray eyes. Her eyes flicked onto Lily and she made her way over to her.  
  
"Do you happen to know where the restrooms are?" she asked desperately. "I've been asking around but no one seems to want to tell me."  
  
"Sorry, I don't know any more about this than you do-AARGH!" Lily screamed as her hair got yanked by an invisible force so strong she tumbled into the aisle and landed in a heap in front of a group of sniggering boys. The little girl gave a squeal and ducked behind a stack of cauldron cakes.  
  
"What was that for?" Lily asked angrily at the group of boys, which was led by a tall, arrogant boy with striking blond hair and an infuriating smirk.  
  
"Ooh, redheaded temper," said the boy. "I'm Lucius Malfoy. And you are.?"  
  
"Why is that any of your concern? You did not answer my question yet."  
  
"It's just fun, to take advantage of first-years. Now answer my question."  
  
"Lily Evans. And now I'd appreciate it greatly if you would get out."  
  
"As you wish, milady," said Lucius, sweeping a magnificent bow while his comrades sniggered. They left accordingly.  
  
After they left, the girl turned to Lily with wide eyes.  
  
"You had to courage to speak up to Lucius Malfoy?"  
  
Lily raised an eyebrow.  
  
"He's one of the Malfoys! Don't you know anything about them?"  
  
"I'm afraid not."  
  
"I guess you must be muggle-born, then. The Malfoys are one of the most prominent wizarding families-it's best not to mess with them if possible," said the girl. "By the way, I'm Alice Mason."  
  
"Lily Evans, pleased to meet you," said Lily, sticking out a hand. Alice shook it.  
  
"Don't worry about being muggle-born, you'll catch onto things fast."  
  
"I doubt that, when I am so far behind on everything."  
  
"There are tons of muggle-borns that become prominent members of the magical community, so don't read in too much of it. Once we are at Hogwarts, everyone is equal. At least, they should be."  
  
After chatting with Alice for a few minutes, Alice left and Lily was left alone again. She fell asleep after a while, and was woken up by a rough shake.  
  
"Better wake up, we'll be at Hogsmeade Station in ten minutes, so change into your robes quickly," said the prefect who had woken Lily up before moving on to the next compartment.  
  
Lily felt odd in her billowing robes and nearly tripped over them getting off the train and again getting into the boat that would take her across the lake and to Hogwarts.  
  
Lily looked for Tracy, who had been her next-door neighbor for as long as she could remember, and had introduced her to the magical world after her letter from Hogwarts. She spotted Tracy talking to a pretty girl with blond hair, whose face was scrunched up into an expression of deep disgust. Their boat was already full, so Lily had to move on and look for another one.  
  
All the boats were full so Lily ended up having a boat to herself. Feeling rather lonely, she sat back and sighed as the boats launched off across the lake.  
  
She was just nodding off to sleep when there was a loud explosion and her boat rocked quite wildly. Water splashed everywhere and a particularly large wave tumbled into her boat. Lily quickly set to frantically bailing the water out.  
  
There was screaming everywhere, especially from the girls. Lily saw that several boats had capsized and the giant that had been leading them was working hard to upright the boats while yelling at the other students to try and make room for the ones in the water.  
  
After her boat was sufficiently stable once more Lily braced herself and leaned over the side of her boat. Grasping the closest body, she heaved upwards and fell with a crash back into her boat.  
  
Lily looked down at the person she just rescued to see a boy with black hair and round glasses askew on his head. He straightened them, blinked, and coughed.  
  
"Hey, thanks, 'appreciate that," he said, coughing up more water. "I'm James Potter."  
  
"No problem," said Lily, quite out of breath. This James was no lightweight, skinny as he was. "Lily Evans. What do you think happened?"  
  
"Oh, it's nothing," said James quickly.  
  
Lily arched an eyebrow. "You call this nothing?" she waved her hand at the scene behind them, where there were still many frantic people in the water. Many of the people in the upright boats were too scared of capsizing themselves to try and help.  
  
James saved himself from answering by bursting into another bout of coughing.  
  
"Shoot, I hope I don't catch a cold.Hey, Sirius!"  
  
James was reaching out for someone struggling in the water close by. Lily leaned over to help him and together they pulled on board a very good looking boy with black hair and mischievous eyes, which were at the moment dimmed.  
  
"Thanks mate," he said, clapping a hand on James' shoulder once he recovered. "That was some water induced grenade, wasn't it?"  
  
"Water induced grenade?" Lily narrowed her eyes. "What's that?"  
  
"Nothing," said James and Sirius together. They looked at each other and laughed.  
  
"I highly doubt that," said Lily.  
  
"Well, it's nothing you need to know about. It was all an accident anyway."  
  
"A very cool accident, to be sure."  
  
"Yeah, couldn't have had better timing, Snivellus was really getting on my nerves. Dunno why he has to keep bothering us. Maybe this dunking will wash all that grease out of his hair."  
  
Once everyone was safely back in boats the boats resumed their journey to the school. At the landing the shivering, wet, miserable group of students huddled, waiting, as the giant Hagrid set the boats in order before heading up to the great doors and knocking.  
  
There was a minute's silence, students watching, listening, shaking, with bated breath. Then the door swung open and a witch in green robes was silhouetted at the entrance, bright lights glaring from behind her.  
  
"Welcome, to Hogwarts." 


	2. The Sorting

The Sorting  
  
The tall witch in green introduced herself as Professor McGonagall, then led the students into the Great Hall, where there were four long tables seating the whole school minus the first years. Lily stared in wonder at the ghosts flitting about the floating candles and the ceiling, which was enchanted to look like the sky.  
  
After the Sorting Hat finished its song, Tracy was the first to be sorted.  
  
"Adler, Tracy!" McGonagall called.  
  
Tracy practically ran up to the stool and jammed the hat onto her head. After a moment's deliberation the hat shouted out,  
  
"SLYTHERIN!"  
  
Tracy's mouth flapped open in shock, but she soon recovered. Smiling pleasantly, she hopped off the stool and jogged down to the Slytherin table and sat down. A couple of people later.  
  
"Black, Narcissa!"  
  
The pretty girl that Tracy had been talking to on the boats walked up. She still had that awful expression on her face, which intensified as she picked up the grubby hat and placed it gingerly on her head. Within three seconds the hat made it's decision-  
  
"SLYTHERIN!"  
  
"Black, Sirius!"  
  
Sirius winked at James before going up to the stool. He strode up confidently and sat very primly on the stool with an expression of utmost calm on his face. Closing his eyes he held that expression, as if training for yoga or other forms of deep meditation.  
  
The hat took such a long time with Sirius that the students were starting to get restless. Finally-  
  
"GRYFFINDOR!"  
  
Soon it was Lily's turn.  
  
"Evans, Lily!"  
  
Lily sat on the stool rather apprehensively and waited for the Sorting Hat's judgment.  
  
"Ah, young Lily, where shall I put you?" The hat mused. "You have an admirable thirst for knowledge, perhaps Ravenclaw? But I see Ravenclaw will not suit you, and neither will Hufflepuff, no matter how much you might be comfortable there. Soon you will be restless, and seek adventures to relieve the monotony. Perhaps you would like to follow your friend Tracy to Slytherin? No, you are not Slytherin material. I see you are intelligent and intrepid, I shall put you in.."  
  
"GRYFFINDOR!"  
  
Lily walked down to the Gryffindor table amidst polite applause and sat down quickly as "Franklin, Lisa!" was being sorted.  
  
Alice was put into Hufflepuff, and James into Gryffindor.  
  
After the Sorting there was a feast. To her surprise, Lily found that most of the food wasn't all that much different from foods she normally ate, though there were many dishes she didn't recognize. She had been expecting more things to be magical food, like the ones sold on the train.  
  
Alice and Tracy, the only girls she knew so far, were both sorted into different houses, so Lily looked around for some other people to talk so, though she wasn't getting much luck. The three girls to her left were having a heated discussion about cute quidditch players, whoever those people were. Celebrities in the wizarding world, perhaps. Another pair of girls were in a deep discussion about politics, and Lily didn't feel she had enough knowledge about the Ministry of Magic to put in her two cents in that conversation.  
  
After dinner was over a prefect led the sleepy first-years up to the dormitories. A fat lady in pink guarded the entrance to Gryffindor tower, with the password "scarlet heather". The common room was cozy with a great roaring fire, thick tapestries of hunting scenes, and squashy armchairs scattered around the room at random.  
  
Lily trudged up the stairs to the girls' dormitory behind the rest of the girls. Inside the room labeled "First Years" there were seven beds. Lily's bags had been deposited on the bed farthest from the door, next to a large window looking out to the grounds.  
  
*****  
  
Three hours later all the girls were asleep but Lily. She was restless and unable to sleep, for some reason she could not fathom. She thought all this activity and change would be tiring-and she was tired, she just couldn't sleep.  
  
Cracking the window open slightly, she let in a cool breeze that played with her hair. One of the girls that had been discussing politics at the feast twitched and started mumbling in her sleep.  
  
Carefully craning her head out the window, Lily looked up at the stars, wondering if Petunia could see them too.  
  
Petunia was her sister, older by two years. They had been rivals in almost everything ever since Lily could remember. Lily was sad now that she was at Hogwarts and everything she had excelled at would be surpassed by Petunia. Petunia would be a far better musician, dancer, singer, scholar, and horseback rider by next summer.  
  
Lily left the window open as she crawled into bed, letting the wind bring in the smell of pine trees and crisp air. Listening to owls hoot softly in the distance, she soon fell asleep. 


	3. Days at Hogwarts

Chapter Three  
  
Panting slightly, Lily slid into her seat in Transfiguration with five seconds to spare. She noted with more than a little amusement that James and Sirius arrived five seconds too late.  
  
"I will not tolerate tardiness in my class, boys," said Professor McGonagall severely, looking down at them from behind the glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. "Detention to both of you tonight, in my classroom. Take your seat next to Peter."  
  
"Aw, professor," Sirius whined. "Detention on the first day of class?"  
  
"Yes, it is possible. Now go take your seat. Now!"  
  
Sirius and James took their seats, grumbling. When James caught Lily staring, he smirked and Lily frowned.  
  
"Now, class, I want you to pay attention closely. Transfiguration is one of the most difficult and dangerous subjects you'll learn while you're in Hogwarts, so I will not stand for any horse playing in my class. Transfiguration is not to be abused. If I ever get one more report about another student being turned into a watermelon---PEEVES!!"  
  
Peeves was floating above a Hufflepuff girl's head and pantomiming dropping a real watermelon. The girl shrieked and Peeves almost dropped the watermelon, but one look from McGonagall and he zipped out, cackling, juggling the watermelon above his head. The girl, apparently a muggle-born and not used to great displays of magic, had to be taken up to the hospital wing in hysterics.  
  
After the class settled down again McGonagall turned to the board and resumed the class. Lily was quite unsettled and kept checking the space above her head as if Peeves would come back any time soon.  
  
"Miss Evans, I recommend you keep your eyes on your match instead of the ceiling. Staring at the ceiling will not increase your Transfiguration skills any."  
  
"Sorry," Lily muttered, flushing deeply as James sniggered, his match already a perfect needle.  
  
They had Potions with Slytherins next. Only one student was able to make his weeping potion correctly---Severus Snape. He had greasy, stringy hair, pale skin, and a nasty look about him as if he were plotting which curses to lay on anyone who dared speak to him save for the instructor, who was quite impressed by Severus Snape's potion. The instructor, Professor Renaldo, took a swig from Snape's potion and was bawling his eyes out so much he dismissed the class half an hour early.  
  
"Go!" he sobbed as the unnerved class slipped out of the room, casting furtive glances about them, "Just go!" He took out a lace-edged hankie, wiped his face, hiccupped, and then burst into a fresh wave of tears and wailing.  
  
"What a waste of space," Lily heard Severus mutter as he loped out of the classroom as Professor Renaldo sobbed out,  
  
"T-ten points to S-slytherin for this wonderful c-concoction!"  
  
Lily's favorite class was Charms, with tiny Professor Flitwick. He was extremely impressed with her skill at Charms and gave five points to Gryffindor when Lily was the only student able to make her feather fly across the room and hit the bulls-eye on the dartboard hung up by Professor Flitwick's desk, and twirl in time to a few of Professor Flitwick's favorite songs to boot.  
  
Herbology was all right, except for when half an hour into the class, Lily confused a few plants and accidentally fed her cannibulb a poisonous mushroom and it died promptly.  
  
Lily took two rolls of parchments' worth of notes in History of Magic before realizing it was hopeless and fell asleep, like the rest of the class.  
  
In Defense Against the Dark Arts Lily had to take more notes, but managed not to fall asleep. Professor Newton did not hesitate to rap the back of a sleeping student's head with his knuckles and seeing the reactions of the rudely awoken sleeping students, Professor Newton was a pretty spry man for his age (99, which he revealed to the class right off the bat to fend off any questions).  
  
All in all Lily felt she wasn't doing too badly, despite the fact that it was hard to get used to this new system. She wasn't sure she liked boarding school, since she was lonely a lot, and had nothing to do to fill up her spare time. She did join the Chess Club, but lost interest in it rapidly after observing a game of wizard's chess. She sucked royally at normal chess, so how was she to do anything when chess pieces yelled at her?  
  
She finally took to wandering about the castle, asking the portraits for directions back to Gryffindor tower whenever she wanted to return. Most of the time the pictures were helpful (sometimes overly so), so she had no problem.  
  
One day she found an especially intriguing room.  
  
The room was very large, with a dance floor and orchestra pit, and several large pianos. Upon closer inspection Lily saw that some of the pianos were actually virginals, clavichords, harpsichords, celestas, and other piano- like instruments.  
  
One of the walls was a large mirror extending from the ceiling to the floor. A long bar ran the length of wall, the exact height used for ballet. Lily excitedly walked over and did some ballet exercises. She was sad to find that months of no practice left her extremely handicapped.  
  
Exploring a bit more, she found a large canvas and a large tray of paints, of all things.  
  
"Hello!" a cheerful lady with bouncy ringlets popped onto the canvas. "Going to draw something?"  
  
"Er, I guess so," said Lily uncertainly, picking up one of the many brushes lined up next to the canvas. "Any suggestions?"  
  
"Anything is fine. It's been so dull here, without anything new. It takes too much effort to leave this room, doesn't it Edith?"  
  
"Sure does Edna," said an identical face popping onto the canvas. Edith and Edna looked exactly alike, even down to the number of ringlets and freckles. The only difference was Edith's right eyebrow, which had a scar on it.  
  
"Well.." Lily dipped her brush into some brown paint and drew a stick about three inches long. "How about that?"  
  
"What kind of an artist are you?" Edith snorted, poking at the stick. "Can't you draw something more interesting?"  
  
Lily shrugged and drew a random shape attached to the end of the stick.  
  
"Hey look Edith, it's a hand bell!" Edna exclaimed, taking the "bell" and ringing it.  
  
To Lily's surprise a clear, high note clanged out. Edith and Edna were delighted, and begged for more.  
  
Soon they were playing "Hot Cross Buns" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb". They got other pictures to join in and soon they had their own little bell choir going.  
  
"I wish I had some real music for you guys to play," said Lily wistfully and a stack of music popped onto a chair next to her.  
  
Lily set up the music so the bell choir could see (everyone miraculously fit onto the canvas, for it had stretched to amazing proportions to accommodate everyone). To her dismay, it was a complete mess because none of the pictures, save for Edith, Edna, and a few others, even knew how to read music.  
  
"I see this will need work," Lily sighed, then checked her watch. "Oh my, I have to go to sleep! I've got a Transfiguration exam tomorrow, so I need my rest. Sir Kingsley, will you kindly give me directions to this room tomorrow? Meet me outside Gryffindor tower in the Fat Lady's portrait, if you will."  
  
"Certainly, good lady," said Sir Kingsley, sweeping an excellent bow.  
  
As Lily climbed into bed, she couldn't image why such a room existed at Hogwarts, yet no one mentioned it. True, it was a large school, but if there was such a large room entirely devoted to the arts, why didn't Hogwarts show any other signs of acknowledging the arts?  
  
Lily's roommates were still up, chatting excitedly about a chance encounter one of them had with a boy one of the girls (or all of them) apparently had a crush on.  
  
"Like, I bumped into him as he was coming out of the bathroom!" Heather, a ditzy blond with blue eyes, clasped her hands and sighed dreamily.  
  
"That boy is conceited. He knows he's popular, especially with the girls, and uses it to his advantage," said Trudy, a slightly nerdy looking girl who was also at times a mild cynic.  
  
"You're just jealous because James can wear glasses and look cool while you look like a dork," said Myra, a twiggy girl with long black lashes.  
  
"Why're you guys all mooning over James? Sirius is way nicer looking. Did you see the way he flipped his hair in the common room today? SO ADORABLE!" Celina hugged her pillow tightly.  
  
"I think James ought to be warned he is being stalked," said Rena unconcernedly, painting her nails and blowing them dry. "And Sirius too, when it comes down to that. By the way, did you see their friend Remus? Now he is handsome. James and Sirius are nothing."  
  
"They're all nutters," Lily muttered, pulling her curtains shut and burrowing deeper into her bed. "Boy crazy at 11 years. My goodness I'm surrounded by Petunias." 


End file.
